CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The Mirage of Security: The Dangerous Bukele Model

The apparent widespread popularity of Nayib Bukele’s government (regime) acts as a sophisticated media smokescreen. Under the guise of effectiveness lies the deliberate dismantling of the rule of law and the deepening of social precariousness that the regime attempts to render invisible. Physical security, achieved through the permanent suspension of civil liberties, is a mirage that sacrifices social justice and due process in favor of a one-man hegemony and becomes a kind of war on the poor, paradoxically endorsed by them.

In El Salvador, following the governments of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) between 2009 and 2019 and amid security crises stemming from the civil war and the actions of gangs (maras), the public swiftly shifted from these progressive governments to granting carte blanche to a new brand of authoritarianism in exchange for a sense of state control. The Salvadoran government’s marketing has perfected this transition, masking repression by stigmatizing any criticism as support for crime. Legitimacy no longer stems from law enforcement, and high popular support is politically capitalized upon to eliminate checks and balances.

According to data from the April 2026 survey by CB Consultora Opinión Pública, Nayib Bukele (El Salvador) leads in popularity in the region with a 70.1 percent positive rating (down from 71.8 percent in March), while Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil) has 48.4 percent support, and is seeking a historic fourth term amid strong polarization (49.1 percent disapproval), and Gustavo Petro (Colombia) has a 38.2 percent approval rating, in an electoral landscape featuring a possible second progressive-leaning administration under Iván Cepeda, against a backdrop of rising violence in the country in recent weeks.

This approval of Bukele has been exploited to validate........

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